04 April 2004	Sunday	13 Safar 1425

KARACHI, April 3: The Sindh High Court has asked the national and regional accountability bureaus to calculate the 'exact amount' due from an accused within two weeks from April 2 and if the amount claimed was paid , the accused should be released by way of plea bargaining.

Abdul Razzak Shaikh, an engineer, submitted in his writ-cum-bail petition that he was involved in the alleged misappropriation of funds in the construction of the new campus of Shah Abdul Latif University near Shadi Shaheed, Khairpur. In fact, it was his late father, Haji Allah Bux, who executed a housing and electrification project at the campus through his firm, Light House Centre, Khairpur, at a cost of Rs6,793,256. He was a student at the time of his father's death in 1993.

The petitioner said he received only two cheques amounting to a total of Rs390,326 in the name of his own firm, M/s Danish Electric Centre, for the works carried out by his father's firm. The payment was in accordance with the rates authenticated by the university authorities. The allegation in the reference is not use of substandard material but 'recovery of higher rates'.

However, he offered the accountability bureaus and court to repay the total sum received by him (Rs390,326) to secure his release by plea bargaining.

Representing the petitioner, Advocate M. Nawaz Shaikh argued that the petitioner could not be held liable for a penal offence that might possibly have been committed by his late father. Even if he acquired any civil liability of his deceased father, he could not be called upon to suffer punishment for any offence that might have been committed by his father.

He referred to a Supreme Court ruling that 'even coercive process for recovery of a (farm) loan could not be transferred to a son'.

Noting the contentions of the counsel, a division bench comprising Justices Sabihuddin Ahmed and Mohammad Afzal Soomro observed that NAB deputy prosecutor-general M. Anwar Tariq had conceded that the petitioner offered to refund the amount actually received by him by way of plea bargaining. He assured that the national and regional accountability bureaus would calculate the exact amount and apprise the petitioner of it.

The bench ordered that the exercise (of ascertaining the exact amount) should be completed within two weeks and in case the amount claimed is paid, the petitioner may be released. In the event of any dispute, the petitioner would be free to approach the high court again, the bench observed.